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Topic: Bobby Mason/Voted Off (Read 4338 times)

Bobby Mason grew up in South Central Los Angeles, where he lost three friends over the years to gunshot wounds. When Mason reached high school, his parents facilitated his admittance to one of the top college prep schools in the country, The Harvard School (now known as Harvard-Westlake) in North Hollywood, California. While at the Harvard School, Mason was exposed to a diverse community of children from varying cultural and economic backgrounds and varying degrees of privilege. Mason declares he had experiences and made lifelong friendships with people that he otherwise would probably never have encountered or been exposed to. He honed his dream of being a scholar/athlete at the highest levels and was able to realize this when he was admitted to Amherst College in Massachusetts.

In 1996, Mason received his Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude in political science from Amherst, where he had also played baseball. He went on to attend Stanford Law School, graduated in 2000 and is currently an attorney in Los Angeles. He previously worked as an assistant to a sports agent and a consultant at a consulting firm.

Mason is a member of the American and California Bar Associations, Black Entertainment and Sports Lawyers Association, Black Sports Agents Association, National Association of Record Industry Professionals and Los Angeles Music Network.

In his spare time, Mason enjoys working out, any competition, fantasy baseball, drawing, reading and comic books. He describes himself as dominant, loyal, malleable and stubborn. He is most proud of being an all-around good guy. He was on "Blind Date" in 1998.

Mason is currently single and living in Los Angeles with his dogs, Bolo and Dog. His birth date is August 20, 1973.

Bobby Mason's Early Show InterviewTranscript by James Barber for SurvivorFever.net 3.03.06

RENE: There were fireworks last night on Survivor: Exile Island. The dysfunctional Casaya tribe returned to Tribal Council, where an alliance of four cut lawyer Bobby Mason loose, using the last bottle of wine as evidence to convict him.

(video package)

RENE: Now you're here. Bobby Mason, good morning.

BOBBY: Good morning. It's good to be here.

RENE: I'm going to get to the wine in just a minute, young man. But first I want to ask you - last night at Tribal Council, the wheels just about fell off at Tribal Council. It just exposed you guys do not like each other very much.

BOBBY: Yeah. This game...

RENE: What was up?

BOBBY: This game was not exactly being played at a Survivor strategy clinic here. That last day basically condensed two weeks of lack of strategy and lack of gameplay, all at once. People running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Nobody knew what was going on. But I saw it coming. Danielle spilled the beans on day three, before they voted out Melinda, that I was supposed to go. So for ten days I knew I was gone.

RENE: What was the deal with you and Courtney? You said she was one of the most irritating people in the history of the world. My gosh, that's pretty bad.

BOBBY: I counted, I counted.

RENE (laughs): You counted.

BOBBY: I counted.

RENE: Why? What was the problem with her? Why didn't you like her?

BOBBY: I think it's - well, one of her personalities was cool, it was the other three or four (Rene laughs) personalities that she's got tucked - every now and then the nice one will come out and you'll make a deal with her and then the next day that nice one won't wake up so...you know, she's a lunatic. I think it's good they're increasing the diversity, the first bunch of crazies we've had out here. It's good to see.

RENE: What about Shane? And we all know now Shane is trying to pick this pack-a-day or two-pack-a-day cigarette habit. You didn't like him much either. You guys looked like you got along and then he's talking about you behind your back, or what?

BOBBY: Shane's a smart guy. He knows that if he's gonna talk about me, he'd better do it behind this back, if he doesn't wanna end up smashed somewhere in the ocean. Acid-wash jeans and that mullet. (Rene laughs) I saw that stuff coming a long time ago. Aras told me he'd said some pretty wicked, pretty nasty things about me, but every time I stared at him, he buckled, as he should have. With those jailhouse tattoos he's got, I think I would have folded as well. Shane wasn't a problem. Actually, I stayed away from him on purpose because I knew at some point I was gonna need him not to vote for me.

RENE: And he didn't. He ended up not...but let's talk about last night's challenge, cause you guys did great in the reward challenge. You were awesome there, cutting the fish. I'm surprised that you're here today because you were very valuable to your team in the challenges. And then of course one of the things you guys got, rice, beans, fish, and wine. I want to take a look at the Survivor secret scene and then come back and talk to you. This was when the wine was flowing and all was good.

[

BOBBY (solo): After we won the reward challenge, as soon as we touched down on the island back at camp, someone decided to break out a bottle of wine. I was hitting my poses in the middle of celebration, and I said, "Yeah, West Wise Casaya Gangsta Tribe, woo woo", cause I'm from LA and we have a tendency to do that. Assign fantabulous names to things that aren't fantabulous. I think Courtney dug the way it sounded, so I might officially dub our team the Westside Casaya Gangsta Tribe.

RENE: So you guys were about 30 seconds away from singing Kumbaya and having a big group hug and kiss, and then all of a sudden...what happened?

BOBBY: This is...

RENE: You had a bottle of wine, you went into the outhouse...

BOBBY: This is how it went down. We actually won four bottles of wine, and as soon as we got there, Danielle and Courtney started acting like they were first week freshmen in college, and they started guzzling it. So I said hold up a minute, let's get Bruce and Cirie, they're also part of the team, remember. So I brought Bruce and Cirie in. By this time a bottle had already been killed, the five of us with our drinking. Aras and Shane don't drink at all, so we were basically drinking the wine. At some point we got here, we were having a pow-wow and everything, and I was like the center of attention, and apparently I wasn't that evil, I wasn't that ungentlemanly guy.

RENE: But do you not think that that was wrong to take the bottle of wine? You and Bruce polished off a bottle of wine yourself in the outhouse and deprived the others.

BOBBY: You have to ask yourself why two grown men - two grown straight men, would go voluntarily hang out in an outhouse together. The answer is it wasn't voluntary - we did get booted out of that shelter. Bruce is deadly, I don't know why you'd do that to two guys who could take you apart with his bare hands. We got booted out of there. Maybe it was a misunderstanding, but we're supposed to be a team, and they should feel bad about us having this misunderstanding, and they didn't.

RENE: Bruce may be deadly, and you're strong, but you're here. Unfortunately.

I think he was pretty "full of himself" for taking the wine and drinking it all. He just seemed to think everyone would be okay with it. And you know he would have been first in line to bash anyone else that would have drunk the wine.

Bobby Mason flew under Casaya's radar for the majority of his five-episode run on CBS' Survivor: Panama—Exile Island (Thursdays at 8 pm/ET), but the Los Angeles native claims that his limited camera time was a purely strategic ploy. When TVGuide.com caught up with the mighty "Bob Dog" after his elimination, he barked about his on-screen portrayal and about what — OK, namely who — really irked him during his island stay. TVGuide.com: What has the reaction been like since your elimination episode aired? Bobby Mason: People were really angry about the way I was treated. No one really saw a lot of the good stuff that I was doing early on in terms of strategizing. All of a sudden, producers break me out as [being] lazy and taking dumps and stealing stuff. People who I talk to know the real deal and understand it's entertainment. I'm not saying I played the game perfectly — there are some things I would have done differently — but for the most part, I was locked out early on, all because of that funky alliance that started.

TVGuide.com: Is it fair to say that your Survivor claim to fame is being the first contestant to christen "Casa de Charmin"?Bobby: That was actually my strategy in stealing the wine — I didn't want to be known as the "toilet dude," so I figured, "be known as the wino."

TVGuide.com: Viewers didn't hear so much as a peep from you until that reward-challenge win. Was that a part of your strategy?Bobby: I was in defensive mode from the start, and I was walking around on eggshells trying to stay under the radar. It's hard to stay under the radar when you're 220 pounds and call yourself "Bob Dog," but given that, I think I did a decent job of staying out of all those little fights. I wasn't as silent as it seemed. There was a time when I got in more fights than Courtney and Shane did, but they were actually about something. Those two would just fight because that's the way they talk to each other! I was disappointed in how I had been "tucked away" for those first few episodes, because I know I was actually in there playing the game.

TVGuide.com: As far as the reward challenge in last week's episode, you essentially secured that win, catching the fish that provided your tribe with its first decent meal in days. Was that a tough challenge to complete?Bobby: That was probably the most fun thing I did out there. It was the first time I got to completely unload on something. Danielle and Courtney protested every other thing I did — I would try to make a spear out of bamboo, and you would hear them say [Imitating their whiny, high-pitched voices], "We need to work on the fire."

TVGuide.com: That's sort of how viewers saw it on TV — minus your sound effects, of course. Bobby: It was 9,000 times worse than that. I can't even explain to you how bad it was. There were two of them, but it was like four, because Courtney's got three personalities, all of which are annoying.

TVGuide.com: One would think that after scoring food for your tribe, you would have been kept around. Did you get any sense you were going to have to pack your bags?Bobby: People won't believe this, but I'm actually a pretty down-to-earth dude. I'm actually modest about the things I did and did well. Bruce was having trouble during the challenge since he didn't have the leverage, because of his height, and I did bring us back to win. Jeff [Probst] said that himself. So I wasn't patting myself on the back; that's what the consensus was. But I didn't think that entitled me to anything. Knowing my tribe, the mightier I seemed, the more likely I was to go.

TVGuide.com: Along with winning fish for dinner, Jeff gave Casaya some wine to enjoy. Walk me through your reasons for secretly holing up in the outhouse with Bruce and that prized bottle of wine. That pact you made to never vote each other out, was that the alcohol talking?Bobby: It came across on television that I was making a promise not to ever vote for him, and I never made a promise like that to anybody. I was in such a weak position that it didn't do me any good to make a bond with anybody. Bruce and I are tight and I look forward to being friends with him when we get back to L.A.

TVGuide.com: Were you surprised by the tribe's reaction to your finishing the wine without their consent? Bobby: They made it seem like it was a big deal. On TV it looked like I had stolen [the only bottle], but we had four.

TVGuide.com: In Episode 3, when you spoke highly of Bruce for improving the tribe's morale, your kind words resulted in La Mina sending him to Exile Island. Any regrets?Bobby: I understand where the other team was coming from. If I had known the other team was going to pick the exiled contestant, I would have said, "Shane is incredible! He's the best!" — La Mina didn't know he had tried to quit earlier. I choked back some emotions when Bruce was sent. He had no idea how cold-blooded some of these people were. They were smiling to his face, but they were vicious to him behind his back, which is stupid, because I now knew what they were saying about me behind my back. My comments were a boost to Bruce's confidence but also a message to my tribe.

TVGuide.com: Here's where I'll ask the obligatory Shane question: Is he as crazy and outspoken as he appears on TV?Bobby: He's definitely outspoken. Calling him "crazy" lets him off the hook. He's a real deliberate dude. He's like one of those kids who would eat boogers just to have girls say, "Eww, you're nasty!" He needs the attention, and his worst nightmare would be not to be noticed. In person, his actions seemed really contrived. That was part of the reason why I stayed away from him. He was putting on a performance.

TVGuide.com: How did your family reacted to your Survivor run?Bobby: It was fun [for them] but there are a lot of things that were hard to see. I don't want my grandmother sitting around with her senior group seeing her grandson being portrayed in a way that wasn't accurate. It wasn't so much that the negatives were bad, but they never showed any of my positives.

TVGuide.com: You appeared as a contestant on Blind Date in 1998. Now that you've resurfaced on Survivor, does that mean viewers will continue to see you on reality TV?Bobby: If opportunities come, I'll take a look at them. I'm almost an adult now — I'm 32 — so I'm back practicing law at Lapidus & Lapidus and working for a digital-production company.

TVGuide.com: Lastly, while you say Survivor was a positive experience for you overall, what really annoyed you on the island?Bobby: The most annoying things were dehydration, Courtney, Shane's mullet, the lack of sleep, Shane's acid-washed jean shorts, Courtney's other personalities and Danielle's voicehttp://www.tvguide.com/News/Insider/